Seeing through New Eyes
by Vampire-Badger
Summary: Sometimes, Arno has problems staying in one century. And sometimes, he's not as sane as he thinks he is. Or- Helix, the Bleeding Effect, and time travel.
1. Chapter 1

There are nights when Arno doesn't sleep well.

He has reason enough. It's been nearly a year since he witnessed the death of the man that raised him, and the father of the woman he loves. That would be enough to give anyone nightmares, and there are certainly days when Arno's nightmares are bloody and angry and full of memories he can't live with and can't get rid of. But those nights are still better than the ones with the true nightmares, the ones that leave him terrified and sitting up in bed, gasping for breath as the reality of the world comes crashing in around him.

Because there are times… between the nightmares and the waking world, when nothing seems exactly true. Reality itself becomes a paper thin façade, a lie he could reach out and tear if he tries. And that terrifies him, almost (but not quite) as much as the nightmares themselves.

He sees things, in his nightmares. Places, people… _times _that shouldn't exist yet, or have already passed. And while Arno knows there are people that would pay or do anything to see these places, he himself wants nothing to do with them. This is an unnecessary complication, and Arno needs no more of those in his life.

But he can't stop himself from having nightmares, and so Arno continues to see things in his dreams. Wars over and done, or yet to come. The first time it happens, Arno finds himself on a street he knows (but doesn't know), because this is a Paris like none he's ever seen before. It's brightly lit, untroubled by the revolution Arno is being trained to fight. But there's something, a darkness below the city that some part of Arno knows is for running trains through, even while he wonders what a train _is._

(He finds that out soon enough, because he's almost run over by one and that's the most terrifying thing that's ever happened to him)

That's the first nightmare. For a while he just keeps having it, over and over again, until he's sick and tired of the way that same journey can scare him so much, even when he knows exactly how it will play out ahead of time. After all, it's not really the content that scares him. It's the way it makes him feel out of control and out of place in his own skin. And that part… it never changes.

The second nightmare is worse. Arno recognizes the atmosphere of war as soon as he slips into the nightmare, but it's like no war he's ever known. There are planes (terrifying and violent enough to make him miss the trains, and particularly their lack of guns), and a tower so tall he has to wonder what the point of building it had been. But he climbs it, again and again, every time he has this nightmare, straining to reach the very top.

It's like some part of him believes that reaching the top will let him escape, like there's something there that he desperately needs. Arno always wakes up before he gets to… whatever it is, but the intense feeling of need stays with him, even when he's awake. Those are the days he roams Paris (_his _Paris, not the strange Paris from his dreams), climbing everything in sight, as high as he can go. But it's never high enough, and when he reaches the top, he catches himself scanning the horizon for the familiar, hated silhouette of the tower he climbs in his dreams.

(It's not there, of course, it won't be built for years and years and years)

The third nightmare is different, and refreshing because at least it takes place in the past instead of the future. He recognizes where and _when_ he is, as he charges through battlefields and dodges cannonballs fired centuries before his birth. It's a poor compensation, of course, for the ghostly whispers of half visible people in the city around him, or the pain and terror of waking up after, safe (?) in his own bed. But it's something, at least.

And then…

When Arno has gotten used to these three dreams cycling over and over again, a new one comes along and throws him for a loop. And he can tell immediately that this place is different. It feels as real as his own time, and when he looks out the window of the tiny room he's woken up in (and that's another strange thing, because he's never woken up in his nightmares before), the people on the street below are real. Solid. Strangely dressed, but people. There's no feeling that this is a dream, anymore, and Arno realizes with a start that it's _not_. He pinches himself, hard, and nothing happens.

He's awake. And in the future.

The first thing he does is look around. Orient himself. He's in a tiny bedroom, just big enough for a bed and a desk, the latter crammed with papers, so full they're falling onto the floor like carpet. A few books lie on a hastily constructed wooden shelf over the desk, and Arno absentmindedly reaches up and straightens one or two before they can fall. He reads their titles, but they are unfamiliar and mean nothing to him.

The bed behind him is raised off the floor, and Arno crouches down to see a haphazard system of boxes and bins holding clothes in a style he doesn't recognize. He straightens again, and frowns around at the room. The simple fact of the matter is that he has no idea how he'd come to be in this room, when this should be nothing but a dream. "This shouldn't-" and then he stops, taken aback by the sound of his own voice in his ears. Technically, it's _not _his own voice, and not recognizing it now is what shocks Arno more than anything else he's seen so far.

There are no mirrors in the small room, so Arno holds his hand up to his face, studying it carefully and not liking what's there. He feels a nose that's too large and a little more off center than it should be, a scar below one ear, a sudden lack of stubble- an unfamiliar face to match the unfamiliar voice. And there's more. His weapons are gone, along with his robes. Instead, Arno finds himself in a stiff pair of pants and a shirt that covers half his arms and hangs off a frame that's skinnier than he's used to, almost scrawny.

"This is… different," he says aloud. He doesn't usually talk to himself, but these are unusual circumstances and he wants to hear himself again, to double check that he hadn't imagined the change. But no- it's still there, and still just as unnerving to hear as it had been the first time. Arno shivers, wraps his arms around his chest, and walks again to the window in the wall.

He assumes he's still in Paris, but only because of the dreams he's had before. Those had all taken place in the city as well, although the passage of years has made the city almost unrecognizable in his dreams, and a completely foreign view now. Arno pulls the window open and rests his forearms on the sill. The sounds of the city wash over him, artificial noises that he can't name and doesn't like, voices that sound too fast and too busy, and a quiet, incessant beeping that Arno eventually realizes is coming from the room behind him.

It takes him a while to find the source of the beeping but eventually, once he's cleared most of the papers off the desk, Arno discovers a thin black box with the word 'HELIX' stamped across the top. A green light blinks near the bottom, and after a lengthy hesitation Arno jabs his finger over the light.

_"Installation Complete" _a feminine voice chirps behind him, and Arno jumps and swears- the voice is muffled, and there aren't that many places left to look. After only a few seconds he lifts up the bed's single pillow and finds something black and metallic underneath. It looks like it's about the size of his head, so Arno sits down, cross legged, on the bed. And he pulls it over his head.

This is how he learns about the Helix project, about Abstergo, about the hundreds (thousands? more?) of people reliving history through the eyes of the dead. It's how he meets Bishop and Deacon, and how he finally gets connected to his own memories. For most of the first day, he can't do anything but go along with it. There's no point in doing anything else, not when these memories are more familiar than anything else he's seen since waking up (or falling asleep, if somehow this is still just a nightmare).

Except that at some point, he starts seeing memories that he doesn't have yet, and pulls out so fast his head starts spinning. "Shit," he says, tossing the headset away like it's physically burned him. "Shit!" and he stands, shaking, to stand with (not his) fingers pressed against (not his) face, so hard he can feel the skin bruising. Because that's not just _the _future, it's _his _future, and if it's anything like his past then he wants nothing to do with it now. Not until he sees it in his own time.

**-/-**

**So... this started out as me going 'I'm gonna write about time travel!' because the time anomaly missions are pretty much the coolest parts of AC:U. But then somehow this turned into a like... 8000 word rambling monstrosity/exercise in learning to write Arno. So hopefully it's enjoyable anyway and if not... too bad.**


	2. Chapter 2

He turns his mind away from Helix and focuses instead on figuring out… who he is. There are a couple of possibilities, in his mind, about what's happened to him here. One is that as much as he believes he's Arno Dorian, he's not. He's some… some stranger from this century, one whose mind has been broken by too much of other peoples' memories. The other is that he is who he thinks he is, but stuck in another body and another time for no reason he can understand. In the end, he decides it doesn't matter. Either way, he's got the mind of a man several centuries behind the times, and the body of a pale, scrawny kid with no friends and no family. At least, if he has them, Arno can't find any trace.

And he looks. After he figures out how to turn off the Helix machine, Arno spends a while poring over every piece of paper on the desk and floor around it. Most of them seem to be academic papers, heavily annotated and in some cases marked up by a heavy red pen. So, a student. The papers cover a wide range of subjects, from history to the physical sciences to psychology to other, stranger subjects Arno doesn't even recognize. Computers, mainly, and those papers don't even seem like they're written in a language known to humans.

"This is insane," he announces, and pushes the last of the papers into a neat stack with the others, and then snorts and shakes his head because _everything is insane_. "Why me?" he wonders. And then, thinking about the body he's stolen and the mind he's hijacked, adds, "Why you?"

But there's nothing and no one around to give him an answer, and as much as Arno wants to close his eyes and wake up at home, he knows he can't. So he goes exploring. He finds a bathroom down the hall, obviously meant to be shared by everyone on the floor, and spends far too long learning to work things he has no words for (toilets, he'll learn later. Sinks, showers, urinals). Then he goes outside, and faces for the first time the streets of this future Paris.

His feet trace old familiar paths that are suddenly even older and far less familiar. He knows no one in this place, and that realization hurts more than it should. Everything he's ever cared about has been rendered… meaningless by the passage of time. Everything he hates, loves, fears… they've all been forgotten, and the men he's sworn to kill in revenge for his father and de la Serre are as unimportant now as the gossip on Arno's street about who was sleeping with whom. No one even remembers it now, no one but Arno himself, and he feels the tight burden of that responsibility on his shoulders as he walks the streets of this strange new

He wanders, and thinks, and eventually retreats inside when it starts to rain. There's a cafe on the corner where he happens to stop, and the reassuring smells and sounds of food and people talking still makes sense, even if nothing else does. Arno sits in a corner, nursing a cup of water because he has no money (and no idea what a Euro is), thinking as hard as he can.

Right now, he has very little information to work with. He knows for sure that he's in the future, in another body, and that this is still Paris. He's fairly sure he's still Arno Dorian (but less sure now, because the world around him is so _real _and it would almost make more sense if he were just crazy), and that there's a machine in his borrowed room that lets him see his own memories with some weird headset.

And he suddenly realizes that there's one more thing he knows for sure- there are still assassins in this time, and they've contacted him. It's not exactly the order he's used to, but it is literally the only thing in this time that is the same. There are still assassins, and they are still fighting templars- the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Five minutes after that, Arno throws out his empty water cup, opens the door to the café, and goes running down the street as fast as he can, as if he can avoid the rain if he just moves quickly enough. The tiny apartment has already started to seem more familiar, and Arno breathes a sigh of relief when he's safely inside again. Then, he gets to work.

It takes days to get everything sorted. Arno sits down and studies and learns and figures out what he needs to know to survive. First, his life- the body he has borrowed or stolen is twenty five years old, a graduate student that has changed subjects of study more often than Arno changes his clothes. From the evidence on his desk and in his apartment, he strikes Arno as an indecisive man, one with no close friends or family to tie him down and force him to choose. As cruel as it seems, Jean Dupont (the name Arno learns belongs to this body) is possibly the best possible person to play host to Ano's mind. No one will miss him. No one will even notice he's gone.

(But late one night, when Arno can't take the shame and guilt of having accidentally forced a man out of his own mind, he leaves his apartment and travels to a graveyard down the street. There is no grave to dig and no words to say, but he stands there in silence and in mourning until dawn)

He slips into his new life, adapting to it with some considerable struggle. But he manages in the end, taking up Dupont's studies in order to fit in and so he'll have a way to learn about the modern world. There's some scholarship money, not much but enough to live and to pay rent on the admittedly trashy apartment. All that keeps him busy for a good long while and then, when he finally can't put it off any longer, Arno goes back to Helix, and his own memories.

Some nights, he still dreams of the other versions of Paris, in other times. Now that he's in the twenty first century, with a little more context, he can start to put names to the subways, the Eiffel tower, the airplanes, and some of the other oddities he sees in his dreams. It doesn't make them any easier to deal with, though, and what's worse are the new dreams.

In those dreams, he's back in his own life, but living like a man in a fog. He's still himself, but he's never sure if what he sees is really happening, or if it's just his sleeping mind trying to ease his growing sense of homesickness. There are sleeping pills in this century that work very well, and sometimes they keep Arno from dreaming.

(Sometimes.)


	3. Chapter 3

Time grows more and more fluid, and some days Arno isn't really sure who or when he is. Some days he wakes up and he's _home _again, and home is a bedroom above the Café Theatre and he has responsibilities and people relying on him and a goal and a mission. And if he dreams some nights of a life in a century that doesn't exist yet, it's not much of a surprise. He's under a lot of stress, after all.

And then other days, he wakes up and he's _home _but home is a tiny apartment in an old building filled with dozens of other tiny apartments, and he laughs so hard when he finally puts the geography of it all together and realizes this is the exact same place where the Café Theatre had stood, hundreds of years ago. And those days are hard in a different way, because he has to balance learning about the world he's in now with his time in his own memories in Helix.

Sometimes, he can barely remember which century he started in. It's all a blur, a lot of the time, and there are long stretches when both time periods seem like a dream. There's no one he can talk to, in either century, and Arno feels like an old man bowed down by worries he barely even understand.

The worst days are the ones when his time in Helix gets ahead of actually living that life. He knows, for example, that Bellec is Mirabeau's killer before Mirabeau even dies in his own time. He considers saving him, tries everything he can think of, but in the end it doesn't work and Arno is left with the feeling of blood on his hands and a sense of being trapped by time. Because how can everything be permitted if time is fixed, and he can't change anything anyway?

Later, he'll remember Bellec's face when Arno comes straight to him, remember his voice _("What are you looking at, pisspot?") _as Arno studies him in silent contemplation. And he'll remember shaking his head and making up some lie, because he can't explain how he knows Bellec is the killer without even investigating. So he grits his teeth and goes through the motions and asks himself over and over again what he needs to do to actually make a difference.

He wants to yell, to scream, to demand to know _why him_. But he can't, and so he grows silent instead. In one life, his eighteenth century life, Arno drifts away from whatever friends and allies he has left. And in the other, his twenty first century life, he stays isolated and alone and deals with people as infrequently as possible. The only ones he regularly talks with are Bishop and Deacon, the two assassins that accidentally recruited him when he first used Helix, and those conversations are brief and to the point. Arno gives in, accepts things, bows his head and focuses on not losing whatever sanity he has left. It works right up until the day he sees Elise's death, in memories he hasn't lived yet, and everything comes crashing in.

Arno abandons Helix, abandons his studies, and takes to wandering the streets at all hours of the day and night, walking the paved streets and sidewalks that part of him still thinks should not be there. He wants to go back in time, to see Elise again, alive, to try one more time to change the past and to _save her_, because if she doesn't live then there is no point to any of this.

But time is uncooperative, and Arno stays firmly rooted in the modern era. He doesn't even dream, although admittedly dreaming is impossible when he can't even sleep. And then one day, when he walks into the café he goes to most often (mostly because he can't stand to be alone in his room any longer), he runs into Deacon.

He recognizes the voice (British, stumbling over French pronunciations as the annoyed barista crosses her arms and huffs impatiently- possibly more at his gal at ordering tea in a coffee shop than his poor French), and moves impulsively forward to finish the man's order for him. He watches out of the corner of his eye as the man looks over at Arno, face quizzical and then confused and then startled, and shrugs apologetically. When the drinks are ready, Arno leads the way to an out of the way corner and sits with his back to the wall and his arms crossed, waiting expectantly for answers.

"I recognized your voice," he says at last, when Deacon still says nothing. English is sort of a struggle, but the language is just one of many things he's been studying over the past few years. It's one of the few skills that's at least somewhat useful in both centuries, so he's put some serious time into learning.

"Yea," Deacon says. "I recognized yours, too- you're one of the Initiates. Or you were."

"I haven't been around lately," Arno admits. "I couldn't handle-" he stops, swallows, wonders how much to say. "I mean, those last few memories…"

Deacon sighs. "Well, we don't have to talk about them. Not right away, at least. I don't think we've been properly introduced. Shaun Hastings."

He sticks out a hand and Arno shakes it, feeling like something surreal is happening. "Ar-" he stops, pushes his real name away, and corrects himself at the last minute. "Jean Dupont."

"That's French for John Doe, isn't it?" Shaun asks, glancing sideways at him across the table.

"For what?" Arno's never heard the term John Doe before, but Shaun only shrugs and waves the question away.

"Doesn't matter," he says. "What are you doing here?"

"I live down the street," Arno says. "I come here all the time. What are you doing here?"

Shaun shrugs a little uncomfortably and mumbles something vague. Under different circumstances Arno might have protested, but if Deacon is here, it's probably assassin business and that means this isn't an appropriate time to be talking about exact details.

"Why'd you stop logging on?" Shaun asks instead, changing the subject a little. "You were doing really well- way better than any of the others."

"Sorry to inconvenience you," Arno says, giving into the sudden urge to respond sarcastically. "If I'd known I was setting you back so far, I might have stuck around."

Shaun snorts and raises his hands in mock surrender. "Fair enough, I understand. We're not the center of your life. I didn't come here to argue with you, although now that we're both here I might as well try and convince you to come back."

"I can't," Arno says, flatly. "And I don't really understand why you need me, anyway. I already went through…" He goes through several choices in his head (my, his, the) and then finally finishes. "…Arno's memories." It's impossible to miss the way Shaun's eyes go suddenly sharp with suspicion and concern, but he doesn't understand why.

"Are you feeling alright?" he asks.

"Fine," Arno says, eyeing Shaun with equal worry. He hasn't said anything suspicious or wrong, as far as he can tell. "Why?"

"Because," Shaun says flatly. "You almost introduced yourself as Arno instead of yourself, you very nearly called _his _memories _yours_, and you move like a man expecting a fight even though you have a complexion like someone that never goes outside."

"I'm not-" he bites his lip, leans forward, then very deliberately forces himself to lean back and relax. "I feel fine."

"Listen, Jean-" And Arno flinches a little because after all this time that's still not his name. It will never be his name, no matter how long he stays here. "All the studies, all the tests, every piece of information we have on Helix says that the machine is safe."

"But?" Arno prompts, because there's obviously a but coming.

"_But, _it was built based on another piece of technology, called the animus," Shaun says. "It was a lot more dangerous, and it drove a lot of people crazy."

"It can't have been that bad," Arno protests, but weakly. He wants to know where this is going.

"Oh, it was," Shaun says. "There was… they call it the bleeding effect. Spend too much time in the animus, and your ancestor's memories start replacing your own. There are hallucinations, memory loss, irrationality… things I'm seeing in you now."

"It's not-" Arno laughs, and abandons his attempt at secret keeping. "I'm not going crazy. They're _my _memories, so how could they hurt me?" Only they have, because he still sees Elise's body every single time he closes his eyes, and he knows there's nothing he can do to save her even when he gets back to his own time.

"No," Shaun says, very quietly but with a conviction that gives Arno pause. After all, there have been times when this world and this time seem more real than his own, and the 1700s seem like the dream. "I've seen this before," he explains. "I had this… there was a guy I knew. I watched the animus destroy his mind, and I know what this technology can do to people."

"What happened to him?" Arno asks.

"He stabbed his girlfriend, fell into a coma, sort of got better for a while, and then died."

"Oh."

"Yea," Shaun agrees. "That pretty much sums it up. And the thing is… he was a strong guy. Didn't act like it, a lot of the time, but he was. And the animus destroyed him."

"This isn't the same," Arno protests, much more weakly than he'd meant. A crazy man would think he's as normal as a sane one, after all, and Shaun's obvious concern has started a nagging worm of worry in his mind. It wouldn't be so bad if he doesn't half want to believe it himself. There's no one here in this time that he cares about, and that means there's no one here to lose.

"Fine," Shaun says, after considering Arno for a long, weighty moment. "I didn't come here for you, and I'm sorry but you'll have to get your head on straight yourself. I'm sorry if you think you're some dead assassin or the… king of Spain, or whatever but you're not. That's the truth, Jean." He gets up, almost spills his coffee, swears, and backs away quickly. "I'm meeting some French members of the Order this afternoon, but tomorrow I'll be back here, alright? Tomorrow morning. Be here."

"I don't understand," Arno says. "Why go out of your way to help me?" From what he's seen during their limited communications, while he'd been plugged into Helix, and what he's read in the codex database, Shaun seems like the sarcastic asshole type. Not the kind of person that helps others just because they can.

"I told you," Shaun says. "I've already lost someone to the bleeding effect. I'm not doing that again." And he doesn't say another word before leaving the café, and Arno, behind.


	4. Chapter 4

Arno goes to bed early that night, then tosses and turns until midnight as nightmares and wild thoughts chase each other around his frantic mind. He doesn't know what to believe, and he doesn't know what he wants to believe. Either he's a time traveler stuck in another man's body, or he's insane and only believes he's from the past.

"Jean Dupont."

He mouths the name, searching for any trace of familiarity or recognition. If this is his body, and Arno Dorian is nothing but a dream and a memory, then he's been Jean Dupont his entire life. And for some reason he just… doesn't remember. But no matter how many times he repeats the name, saying it over and over again like a chant, like a prayer, it still means nothing.

"Jean Dupont."

Shaun had said it meant something else- John Doe. Arno slides out of bed, pulls out his laptop, and types the name into google. Google is one of the first things he learned in this century, and it's done more to help him understand this time than anything else. Today, it tells him that John Doe is a term for a nobody-man, an unidentified body, a placeholder until something real can take its place. "Fitting," he scoffs, and slams the laptop closed angrily. That's exactly who he is- a John Doe.

He needs to know for sure. One way or the other, he needs to find out who he is.

It's been a long time since this building was last used by assassins, but Arno has spent countless sleepless nights roaming the rooms and the secret passages in the building. Even with the whole place chopped up and converted to apartments, it's not hard to find the underground passages that lead to what had once been the stronghold of the Parisian assassins. It's rundown and clearly hasn't been used in generations- Arno feels an unexpected pang of loss at the sight as he hurries through. Probably today's assassins use something more modern, something that blends in and lets them pass unnoticed.

The ghosts of old friends and allies are there in every corner, memories Arno would rather not revisit. By the time he reaches his goal, the cavernous room where the council has stood in judgment of him so many times, he's running as fast as he can. It doesn't help, of course. No matter how hard he runs, there's no way to escape his past.

The fountain at the base of the stairs is just as he remembers it, and the water is clear and clean despite the grime everywhere else. Arno stands watching it for several minutes, then turns again and leaves. This time, when he returns at last to his room and his bed, he drops off to sleep without effort. His dreams are troubled and dark, but it's more sleep than he's managed in the last few days.

Early the next morning, Arno heads back to his usual café and finds a place facing the window. He sits there watching through the window as the city starts to shake itself awake, and the streets fill with cars and people. It doesn't take much to slip into autopilot, eyes scanning through the crowd for Shaun, hands clutching a cardboard coffee mug that grows colder the longer he sits there. Finally, he catches a flash of a familiar face in the crowd on the other side of the street. By the time Shaun steps through the café's door, Arno is on his feet and waiting for him.

"Hey," Shaun says, and Arno notices not only the bags under his eyes but also the expression on his face that could have been a _smile_ if he were anyone else.

"Busy night?" Arno asks.

Shaun only shrugs. "It went better than I expected, honestly. What about you? Feeling more like yourself this morning?"

"It depends what you mean by 'myself'," Arno says, and Shaun's expression melts almost immediately back into a frown.

"Listen," he says. "If you honestly believe what you told me yesterday, you need to get help."

"I agree," Arno interrupted. "That's why I'm here."

"I meant from a therapist, or something," Shaun snaps. "Not me!"

"Just wait a minute, before you say no," Arno says, and then presses on again before Shaun can continue to argue. "I don't… I mean, there are times when I absolutely agree with you. Me going crazy sounds much more reasonable than time travel."

"Yes it does," Shaun agrees.

"I'm not done yet," Arno says. "The thing is, I had all these memories before you and Bishop ever contacted me. That means they can't have come from Helix, right?"

"Not at all," Shaun says. "Arno's memories shipped with all Helix units along with the other programs. The files are just hidden because they decided it wasn't market ready for some reason. All Bishop and I did was unlock those files on the machines belonging to people we thought might have assassin sympathies." He shrugs. "It's possible you unlocked them on your own and just don't remember because- as I've already suggested- you're batshit crazy."

He reaches the front of the line and this time manages to get through his order more or less comprehensively. Arno waits next to him in silence, more upset than he'd expected. Not because Shaun had called him crazy- the man seems to genuinely mean it in a sympathetic way, as weird as that seems. No, he's concerned because Shaun's story makes a sickening amount of sense. It explains where he got Arno's (_his!_) memories in the first place, the way this time sometimes seems so much more real than the past, and even why he hasn't been back to his (?) time since seeing the last few memories in Helix. Maybe he's never been in the first place, except in his mind.

He lets Shaun lead him to a table near the back. It feels like someone's come and wrapped him in a thick blanket, and all his senses feel numb from the revelation Shaun's just dropped on him. Finally, after the other man has settled in and taken a few clearly unsatisfied sips of his tea, Arno says, quietly, "Why would you tell me that?"

"I really am sorry," Shaun says. "But your delusions aren't helping your sanity any. Things are only going to get worse if you keep fighting reality."

"But it's not _like _that," Arno protests. Then he sighs and drops his head into his hands. He very badly wants a drink right now. "I don't know what to believe right now."

Shaun waits patiently for Arno to gather enough of himself that he doesn't think he's going to start crying. "Why did you come today?" He asks then. "Because it clearly wasn't to hear me tell you how crazy you are."

And that's when Arno remembers, and the thought is like a jolt of electricity up his spine. He sits up straight and stares at Shaun with wide eyes. After all, there is one way to know for sure. "I need a favor," he says. "In my time-"

"In _Arno's_ time," Shaun corrects, but Arno only waves the objection away. That at least seems to have the unexpected side effect of startling the other man into temporary silence. "There was a ceremony when novices became full assassins."

"Yea," Shaun says. "It was pretty unique- one of the few eras when all assassins were given the ability to see their target's memories as they killed them."

"Not just targets," Arno corrects. "Anyone dying, and anyone that was willing to let their memories be seen. It didn't really happen much, of course. The whole thing feels pretty strange."

"But it's possible?" Shaun looks first interested, then disappointed. "But no one knows how to get into that area anymore. Most of the main tunnels collapsed over a century ago."

"I know a way in," Arno says. "I was there last night, and I'll show you the way if you agree to look at _my_ memories."

He can actually see Shaun struggling between the thrill of getting to see the place for himself, and the worry that he might just be indulging (what he sees as) a dangerous delusion. Arno waits, holding his breath. He's never exactly understood how all this works, but he's seen the memories of those he's killed enough times to know that they show the _truth_. One way or another, that's exactly what Arno needs. And if Shaun won't do this for him, Arno knows he has no one else to turn to.

"Fine," Shaun says at last. "At least it'll prove that you're not who you think you are."

Arno doesn't bother answering, even though Shaun is wrong. At this point, he barely knows which way is up, much less who he thinks he is. So all this will prove is that he's_ someone_, and that's a definite improvement over right now.

They go straight there from the café, down a tunnel concealed in what is now nothing but disused storage. Shaun trips over what looks like an ancient sewing machine, the kind that's built right into a table, and goes down with a shout.

"Are you trying to bring the rest of the building down here?" Arno demands, but he puts out a hand to pull Shaun to his feet.

"Not on purpose," Shaun snaps. "I didn't put all this stuff here."

"You could try walking around it."

Shaun rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. "I'm seriously starting to regret coming down here," he says, and that shuts Arno up.

They walk in silence until finally the tunnel ends. Arno watches Shaun's face go from mildly annoyed and slightly disgusted (not that he can blame him- the tunnels are pretty gross) to awed in a matter of moments. "This is incredible," he breathes. "All this time, this has just been waiting here, you know? All that time, all that history, and now we're getting to see it again, just as it was."

"Not exactly," Arno says softly.

"Alright," Shaun says. "So it's a little more run down, I mean it's still pretty impressive."

"I meant that it's empty," Arno says. "I've never seen it empty."

"You've never seen it at all," Shaun corrects, turning his attention back to Arno. "You saw it in another man's memories."

"Let's not have this argument right now," Arno says. "We'll know one way or the other soon enough."

They walk in silence across the empty, cavernous room, footsteps echoing in the quiet. Arno bends down when he reaches the fountain and fishes his empty coffee cup out of his bag. "There used to be a goblet here," he says. "But when I came yesterday I noticed it was gone. So cardboard it is."

"Fancy," Shaun says, but there's a note of nervousness in the word that underlies his usual caustic attitude. "You know, maybe this isn't such a good idea."

"Scared?"

"Of bacteria," Shaun says, with obvious bluster. "And- and infectious diseases in the water. I mean, where does it even come from?"

"Who knows?" Arno shrugs. "It awakens and enhances certain aspects of eagle vision, that's all I was ever told."

"Seeing dead peoples' memories counts as eagle vision?" Shaun demands. "How exactly does that work?"

"It shows the truth," Arno says. "Just… in a different way. Come on, just drink it. Please?"

Shaun gives him a look, then nods and takes the cup from Arno's outstretched hands. He drinks, cautiously at first and then more freely. The cup is not quite empty when it falls from Shaun's numb fingers, but Arno is ready to catch him as he goes limp and falls. For the next forty five minutes, the only sound in the room are Shaun's quiet murmurings as the potion works its way through his system, showing him Arno doesn't know what. Visions of the past, the present, the future- all have been known to take place.

When Shaun finally gasps and comes back to himself, there are tears on his face that he wipes away before Arno can say anything. "Well that was- that was not what I was expecting," he says at last.

Arno doesn't ask for details. He doesn't much care at this point, beyond knowing that it had worked and will presumably continue to work. He holds out one arm, and Shaun hesitantly takes hold of it by the wrist. They stand together in silence for a minute, until all Arno can feel is the steady thud of his pulse between Shaun's chilled fingers. Then, all in an instant, the world flickers and vanishes.

This world between worlds is a place Arno has been to in his mind many times before. On his quest to find the killers of Elise's father, he's dived eagerly and deeply into the minds of men he had no business exploring, always hunting for more information or his next lead. But this is his own mind, and it's terrifying to not know what he'll see.

Fog fills the world, and Arno stares as hard as he can to see past it so he can figure out where (when) he is. When it finally clears, Arno can't help the sad, quiet noise that falls from between his lips. He hadn't known until that moment how badly he wanted to be right. But seeing Elise here, in the safety of his own mind and memory, is all the confirmation he needs to know that he is Arno Dorian. "Thank God," he whispers, and he's never been a religious man but God is everywhere in Paris- it's hard to go down a block without walking into the shadow of a church, and right now Elise is a miracle.

She looks as she had the last time he'd seen her, dressed in her templar gear with her hair falling across her face. Her eyes are hard with anger, at the world, at herself, at the men who killed her father- but softened somehow as she looks at him. And Arno keeps waiting for the flash that will trigger another memory, some other important moment in his life, but it never comes. The scene stays fixed and unmoving, and Arno realizes that there had only ever been one really important thing in his life. It's always been Elise, only Elise, and maybe _that's _why Arno hasn't been home in months. If he has any kind of control over what time he's in, there's no way he can willingly go back to _then_ just to see her die. Not when he knows there's nothing he can do to stop it.

"So… turns out you weren't crazy."

Arno tears his eyes from the still, unmoving memory of Elise, and sees Shaun standing there, arms crossed, looking at him like he's never seen him before. It's only then that Arno realizes he is himself again, back in assassin robes he never thought he'd see again.

"It's probably a little early to say that for sure," Arno says, and it's an effort not to sound surprised at the return of his own voice after so long in the body of Jean Dupont. "All you can really say is that I'm definitely a time traveler."

"Yea," Shaun says. "Yea…"

-/-

**Trying to explain the weird memory... thing from Unity whenever Arno kills someone. That bothered me so much, there was no reason at all for it to be there.**


	5. Chapter 5

That very night, Arno wakes back in his own time, and with a new sense of determination to do whatever it takes to save Elise. It's more than likely impossible, but he knows he'll try anyway. He has to, because he knows now that there is nothing as important as Elise. Nothing.

So he fights, against templars, against guards, against Germaine. Against anyone and everyone that wants to keep him away from Elise. And when there's no one to fight, he holds her. However he can. Quick touches, on her shoulder, her arm, the back of her head. To remind himself that she's still alive.

"What are you doing?" she asks, after a day or two of this. "Arno, you've never been like this before."

He knows better than to tell her the truth, not when he has no proof and no way to back up his claims. "I've missed you," he says instead, which is not a lie, and also worth it for the quick smile she sends his way.

"Stop it," she says. "This is serious."

"Of course," Arno says, but he doesn't stop and she doesn't insist. "Elise…"

"What?"

"Promise me you won't throw your life away," he says. "When we find Germaine…"

"You don't understand, Arno," she says, and now she does draw away from his touch. "I have to avenge my father, and I don't care what happens to me."

"But I care."

And he does, he cares more than it should be possible to care. And when Elise falls at the Temple, exactly as he'd seen it in Helix, he realizes exactly how much that is. He thought he'd been hurt as much as it's possible to be hurt, but now he knows he's wrong. That knowledge had been softened by time and distance. This is his own life, this is real, and Elise is really dead.

That's the last night Arno spends in his own time. He wakes up the next morning in the twenty first century and swears to himself that he will never go back. In as much as he has any choice in the matter, he will fight with every fiber of his being to stay away from the time that took everything from him.

He falls back into the life of Jean Dupont, buries Arno Dorian deep in the back of his own mind. This isn't like before, when he wasn't sure who he was. Now he knows, he knows with absolute certainty because no matter how hard he tries he can't forget. Months pass, months in which all he has is emptiness and painful memories. He sees no one during that time, and that's the best part of all. No one in this time cares who he is or where he's from, so they leave him in _peace_.

Then Shaun comes back. He comes straight to Arno's apartment and bangs on the door until the neighbors start sticking their heads out to complain. Then, finally, Arno opens the door and lets him in. "What are you doing here?" he asks, when Shaun has taken in the whole of the room. It doesn't take long- Arno hasn't added much to it since the day he first woke up. It's still as devoid of personality as it had been then.

"I left my number," Shaun says. "I thought you'd be in contact."

"Don't take it personally," Arno says. "I don't deal with stuff well."

"I'm picking up on that, yea," Shaun says. "So you're… I mean, you're back."

"And planning to stay," Arno says. "It's almost funny. I spent so much effort trying to convince you who I am and where I'm from and now I wish you'd been right."

Shaun raises a hand like he's going to pat Arno on the shoulder, then lets it drop. "Sorry," he says. "I'm not good at comfort. Or most things involving people, really. But I've been looking at your memories."

"I've been trying not to," Arno says, with a quick flash of a grin he doesn't really feel.

"I guess I can sort of understand why you'd want to leave your century."

"Yea," Arno says. "Not much left there."

"But I don't understand why you'd want to leave the assassins."

Arno shrugs. "I only joined in the first place for revenge," he says. "I'm not sure how much of an assassin I ever really was."

Shaun doesn't bother responding, only scoffs disdainfully.

"What?" Arno demands.

"How many assassins do you think joined for big, noble reasons? Most of us are in the order because we have nowhere else to go, or we have family here, or- I mean, revenge is a pretty common motive, too."

"And you're just telling me that because you think it'll make me stay," Arno says. "You think I should."

"I think you _could_," Shaun says. "I mean, who cares why you joined? The point is you did, and we could use as much help as we can get."

Arno sighs and goes to the window. The sight of the city, alive and awake below him, has always been soothing to Arno. Now, his mind paints a scene of his own time on top of this century's reality, and for a second he imagines the twenty first and eighteenth centuries existing side by side. He doesn't know what to think, anymore, or where he belongs. Then he blinks and shakes his head, banishing his memories. This is where he is now. He says- "It's not like I can promise I'll always be here."

Shaun makes a wordless noise of agreement from behind him.

"I don't even know how I got here in the first place."

"I get that."

"But I might as well see what I can do while I'm here." He shrugs, without looking up from his examination of the street outside. Maybe this is his second chance- an opportunity to see the order through new eyes, without the bad blood and distractions that have marred the past few years of his life. He can find out if there's something more here, after all. Something deeper. This could be the right place for him, after all.

It's worth trying, for a while anyway.

**-/-**

**Short ending because I really had no idea how to wrap this up, but hey I did my best. **


End file.
